Warning: massive freewheel below!
It would appear that the purpose of the independent US panel on astronaut health, whose report on astronaut drinking made big news the past few days, was - according to an article on space.com - to collect allegations and not actually to investigate them.
Myself, I tend to doubt the allegations of space travelers launching drunk, if only because astronaut life (and that of cosmonauts) is so closely supervised in the days before launch, primarily to keep them away from people who might, for example, convey a cold virus, and to make sure they stay in tip-top health. The scope of personnel who'd have to keep mum on the subject would, in my opinion, be pretty broad. Now throw in the fact that the people on both sides who decide who flies when (and again) are known to be pretty unforgiving of infractions, that one's best chances of survival if things turn bad depend on a clear head, and that being hung over in space will likely cause crewmates to harbor homicidal thoughts toward you, and it just doesn't add up.
Of course, one of the issues associated with asking an independent panel to assess possible problems with X is that problems must be found, else the panel and whoever appointed it will look silly if a problem with X is ever found subsequently.
* * *A story from a few days ago, to the effect that some baby steps had been taken in a laboratory to genetically alter peanuts to make them non-toxic to those allergic to even trace amounts of peanuts in food, seemed to make the evening news solely on the basis of the scare effect (one of the local news channels played up the danger big time). One thing makes me think, though...
It seems to me it would take a conscious, proactive effort to eradicate "non-neutralized" peanuts throughout the world, and I wonder how such an effort would fare given that GMOs are a topic of contention and, in some places, objects of protest activism. (If memory serves, the failed French presidential candidate José Bové recently led a demonstration in which pollen from non-GMO crops was introduced into fields planted with GMO crops so as to degrade their "engineered" properties.)
And even if such an effort was 99.99% successful, how could you be sure that someone, somewhere wouldn't grow "lethal" (i.e., normal, by today's standards) peanuts so as to cause physical and economic harm (i.e., toxic reactions and massive product recalls, respectively) if even trace amounts were to be introduced into the food supply?
I now return to my previously scheduled final 191 words of the translation due tomorrow afternoon.
Cheers...
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